AUSINDEX-23

• AUSINDEX-23 is the 5th edition of biennial maritime exercise between Indian Navy and Royal Australian Navy (RAN) that was conducted at Sydney, Australia.
• INS Sahyadri and INS Kolkata participated in the exercise along with HMAS Choules and HMAS Brisbane from RAN.
• Besides ships and their integral helicopters, the exercise also witnessed participation of fighter aircraft and maritime patrol aircraft.
• AUSINDEX included a series of complex exercises in all three domains of maritime operations.

EXERCISE BRIGHT STAR-23

• Exercise BRIGHT STAR-23 is a biennial multilateral tri-service exercise between India and Egypt.
• It is scheduled to be held at Cairo (West) Air Base, Egypt from 27 August to 16 September 2023.
• The objective of the exercise is to practice planning and execution of joint operations.
• This is for the first time that IAF is participating in Ex BRIGHT STAR-23 which will also see participation of contingents from the United States of America, Saudi Arabia, Greece and Qatar.
• The Indian Air Force contingent will consist of five MiG-29, two IL-78, two C-130 and two C-17 aircraft.

State of India’s Birds report, 2023

Recently the State of India’s Birds report, 2023 was released by the State of India’s Birds Partnership, a group of 13 government and non-government organisations

• The State of India’s Birds report is a periodic assessment of the distribution range, trends in abundance and conservation status for most of the bird species that regularly occur in India.
• The report is brought out by the State of India’s Birds Partnership, a group of 13 government and non-government organisations that includes:
• This year, the report assessed the “status of 942 bird species largely using data uploaded by birdwatchers to the online platform eBird.
• The earlier assessment carried out in 2020 had listed 15 species of conservation priority.
• Nilgiri Flycatcher (Eumyias albicaudatus), a resident species, which is endemic to the Western Ghats, is a species whose abundance has rapidly declined during the past eight years.
• The high priority list of Kerala also includes Northern pintail, Nilgiri wood pigeon, Eurasian oystercatcher, Great knot, Malabar grey hornbill, and Black-capped kingfisher.

Oceanic Nino Index (ONI)

• The Oceanic Niño Index (ONI) measures the average sea surface temperature deviation from the normal in the east-central equatorial Pacific region.
• ONI is National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)'s primary indicator for monitoring the ocean part of the seasonal climate pattern called the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO).
• The ONI tracks the running 3-month average sea surface temperatures in the east-central tropical Pacific between 120°-170°W, near the International Dateline.
• El Nino conditions is said to be present in the ocean when the index is +0.5 or higher.
• Oceanic La Nina conditions exist when the ONI is -0.5 or lower, indicating the region is 0.5 degrees Celsius or more cooler than average.
• Recently the NOAA has predicted a 66% probability of the ONI exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius during October-December 2023 and a 75% chance of it remaining above 1 degree in January-March 2024.

Somatic Genetic Mutations

• A somatic mutation describes any alteration at the cellular level in somatic tissues occurring after fertilization.
• These mutations do not involve the germline and consequently do not pass on to offspring.
• An error that occurs in the DNA after birth but during development is called a somatic genetic mutation.
• Their occurrence is driven by the repeated ‘copy-pasting’ of the genome.
• As the cells divide, the DNA is copied with extremely high accuracy due to proteins.
• But despite this mechanism, various studies have estimated that there is still an error rate of 0.64-0.78 mutations per billion base pairs per division.
• A somatic genetic mutation can render a cell fitter than others, which lead to the formation of tumours.
• So these mutations are called driver mutations.
• Somatic genetic variants are important for a number of normal physiological processes.
• The immune cells in our body, which produce antibodies, undergo an enormous amount of somatic changes to create diverse proteins.
• Somatic genetic variants play an important role in the development of cancers.

Terai-Arc Landscape

• The Terai Arc Landscape (TAL) is an 810km stretch between the river Yamuna in the west and the river Bhagmati in the east.
• It comprises:
  1. Shivalik region – Covering parts of the lower Himalayas
  2. Bhabar region – Covering the foothills of the lower Himalayas marked by pebbles and boulders
  3. Terai flood plains – Comprising the lowland region below the Himalayan foothills and north of the Indo-Gangetic plains covering entire Uttar Pradesh, southern parts of Uttarakhand, and Bihar.
• It is spread across the Indian states of Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, and the low lying hills of Nepal.
• About 22% of the wild tiger population in India is found across the TAL.
• The landscape has 13 Protected Areas 9 in India and 4 in Nepal. Few of them are:

• Sohagi Barwa Wildlife Sanctuary is located in Terai-Arc Landscape.
• The 3 flagship species in the landscape includes:
  1. The Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris)
  2. The greater one horned rhino (Rhinoceros unicornis)
  3. The Asian elephant (Elephas maximus)
• The landscape also has a high mammalian diversity with herbivores including gaur, nilgai, sambar, northern swamp deer, wild pig, chital and goral.